THE MOTU NEVER SLEEP

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Merrill Paying $10M To Settle SEC Fraud Charges

The Huffington Post Lila Shapiro
First Posted: 01/25/11 02:11 PM Updated: 01/25/11 05:23 PM

Without admitting or denying any wrongdoing, Bank of America Corp.'s Merrill Lynch unit has agreed to pay $10 million to settle the Securities and Exchange Commission's charges of securities fraud and charging customers undisclosed trading fees.

According to the SEC's report Merrill operated a proprietary trading desk which traded securities solely for the firm's own benefit from from 2003 to 2005. This desk regularly obtained information about institutional customers' orders -- information that customers were promised would be kept on a strict need-to-know basis -- and then used the information to place trades on Merrill's behalf after placing the customers' trades.